An active weather pattern will continue into next week although today is dry, sunny and cold. If you are dressed properly today, it will be an enjoyable one from the slopes to the woods to the lakes. Highs this afternoon will only be in the teens, but remain in the single numbers across the higher elevations.
Clouds will help keep temperatures less cold tonight with lows in the single numbers. Saturday is a mainly dry day although a few snow showers might cross the area late in the afternoon. If they do, I don’t expect any problems on the roads from these.
Weak to moderate weather systems will ride along the boundary between the very cold air over Maine and much milder air over the mid-Atlantic region. This means periods of snow are possible Saturday night into late Monday or early Tuesday. The timing and strength of each system will be a bit different.
In terms of accumulation I am not expecting a lot of snow with any one system, although if you add up the numbers it might seem like another sizeable storm.
Here are a few points about the accumulation for the next four days. First, the amounts will change as we get more information about each system. Second, the start and stop times of each event are also going to fluctuate. Finally, the areas that see the most snow during each time period will vary. Portland could see the most snow Sunday, but the area of maximum snow fall could shift north or south from Monday night
Other Long Duration Events
Between February 24t-27, 1969, a slow moving system brought nearly 100 hours of continuous snow to many areas of southern and central New England. While the set-up for the upcoming snow event is different, the 1969 storm illustrates just how long it can snow.
Much of the snow that fell during that event was on the wetter side. Notice Portland had a high of 33F the day they saw 11 inches of the over 21 that would fall during that storm.
I think we will see snow at some point from Saturday night through Tuesday. There will likely be a break in the snow, we will witness close to 85 hours of snow in the forecast If you add all this up, there is the potential for significant more snow on the ground by the time we get to Tuesday night. The chart is just a guide, some of those periods might see less snow and others could see a bit more. The theme is some snow for many hours, but I don’t see a period with heavy snow lasting very long.
These types of events are notorious for not being forecast very well. I highly recommend checking back here and on Twitter @growingwisdom because the timing and amounts of the snow is going to change.
The middle of the week will feature more cold weather, but there are growing signs of another arctic outbreak of below zero air as we head into President’s Day weekend and beyond. School vacation week will cold to start and all this snow is going to make for a memorable vacation for many.
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